So, we were motoring south to the greater Flatonia-Moulton metroplex on a
business trip and to do some reconnoitering of the area, and decided to do a
kolache-BBQ thing along the way. That meant kolaches and baked goods at
Weikel’s in LaGrange going down, and ribs and sausage at City Market in Luling on
the way back. First the kolaches, posted here as a gustidude Kolache Chronicle.
Like the lesser Hruska’s in Ellinger, 14 miles down the highway, Weikel’s is
surrounded by gas station bling, aisles of tsotchkes, a burger grill, and
mini-market aesthetics; there is absoluteluy nothing from the outside that
portends how orgasmic the inside will be. Unlike the Parker-roll similar Hruska’s,
Weikel’s is a serious bakery, making the best Czecheriffic kolaches in the
great state of Texas.

Opening day of the Bon Ton Café in 1929. Pictured behind the bar from
left to right are owners “Pop” Weikel and Alvin Weikel (Jim's Father) and the chef.

The Weikel family has been in the restaurant business since 1929, when
grandfather Alvin Weikel, and Alvin’s brother, “Pop,” opened up the Bon Ton
Café in downtown La Grange to feed the county’s pipeline workers. Alvin’s son
Jim and his wife Jo Ann opened the bakery-convenience store in 1985. Jo Ann's
grandmother Annie Kulhanek migrated from Czechoslovakia as a young child, and
she and her eight sisters grew up making kolaches with their
mom. Competing sisters trying to out-do each other and gain compliments
from the older folks led to perfection of the dough recipe, and then Jo Ann and
Jim worked with her mom's recipe to scale it up for mass production, developing
a true-to-taste batch version that could be made on a larger scale. Weikel’s
was off and running.Now, the kolaches: We bought some cherry and some sweet cream
cheese (cream cheese is the most popular flavor). The light golden brown pastry
is sweet, but not overly so, and has a soft crumb with a rich, buttery, yeasty
flavor. This is what a kolache is supposed to taste like. The fillings seem
like they are from scratch (or at least seriously modified from a #10 can
product, to make them taste as good as they do). The fillings are copious and
bulging-out the bottom of the pastry, nearing escape mass. The cinnamon rolls
are perhaps the best I have ever eaten, made from that same kolache dough, with
lots of buttery, sweet, vibrant, and aromatic cinnamon between the spirals of
dough, and a perfectly textured sugar glaze on top. They also make a version
with pecans and raisins inside. Superb stuff. Weikel’s is a true bakery, and the illuminated
cases are full of all kinds of baked goodies.

The lemon bar looked so tempting I could not pass it up, so we got a couple of
them. After a kolache fix while motoring south to our destination (the kolaches as good as
we knew they would be), we decided that we had to try the lemon bars as well.
This is without question the finest lemon bar I have ever eaten, and I have
eaten more than my share of lemon bars. The golden brown crust is so incredibly
flaky and buttery that it has a hard time maintaining structural integrity. The
lemon custard filling is perfect: just the right balance of lemony citrus tang
and sweetness, with the lemon edging the sweet out by a nose extended at the
last possible second; the texture is creamy and smooth. The dusting of powdered
sugar on the top, while seeming excessive and superfluous, adds just the
required amount of extra sweet to the sour.

Word: do NOT attempt to eat this in a car. I looked like I had been shot at
close range with a shotgun shell full of pastry shards and powdered sugar, and
had both hands schmeared with lemon custard, with all kinds of lemon bar debris
hanging off of my beard. I would have loved to have had a photo of me at the
time, but didn’t dare touch my camera in that condition. We had to pull over
and shake-off our clothes outside the car; the ants along the roadside probably
had a field day. Then I licked fingers and slaughtered numerous napkins for the
next 10 miles or so, but it was SOOOOO worth the mess.

On the way out to the car I had to grab a package of Prasek’s Hillje Venison
and Pork Semi-dry Sausage Sticks with Jalapeño. Prasek’s is a 35-year old Czech
sausage shop-butcher down in El Campo, known for the excellent taste and high
quality of their products. These semi-dry sausage sticks are like deer-pork
crack; get suckered into the first one and many more are going to fall before
the dust settles. They are so good that you will be sausage stick-tweaking for
the rest of the day. Smoky, coarse ground, slightly gamey (a good thing), rich
and porky, garlicky and chile-spicy sticks of goodness. Yum. By the way, B-Jo’s
Bakery, which is inside Prasek’s and started by Mike Prasek’s wife Betty Jo
when her son needed braces, makes kolaches and strudel that are up on a level
with Weikel’s. http://www.praseks.com/
29714 US 59 Hwy
El Campo, Texas 77437
979-543-8312
1-800-20-SMOKE (207-6653)

Now, if you have ever wondered how Weikel’s stacks up against their down-the-road
competition in Ellinger, let me assure you that there is no comparison. Weikel’s
kicks their ass so soundly that it is criminal to utter both names in the same
sentence. Don’t want to drive all the way to La Grange for a personal visit? The
wonderful thing about today’s modern now-a-go-go world is that with the click
of a mouse and a credit card that isn’t maxed out, your friendly delivery dude
will saunter up to your door with boxes of all the Weikel’s and Prasek’s you
want. God bless Texas.

Monday, May 20, 2013

A month ago or so ago R was house and pet sitting at a nice little bungalow over
in Allandale and we decided to grab a bite to eat. I had emailed a list of
options, none of which she got too excited about, and to tell you the truth,
none of them really fired me up either. After whittling down the list, we both
settled on The Frisco Shop over on Burnet Rd. We have both been eating there
for many decades, and there’s a large degree of comfort in ATX these days for
things that don’t change; old landmarks that have stayed the same are fewer and
farther between. You go to the Frisco and the food, the look, and the staff
will all be the same as 30 years ago. It’s like a favorite pair of old jeans.

The Frisco opened in 1953 as a diner offshoot of the Nighthawk Restaurants of innovative
restaurateur Harry Akin, just south of the intersection of Koenig Lane and
Burnet Road. It was one of the only
restaurants in the area back then, and stayed put until it moved up the road a
bit in 2008. Apparently that strip of Burnet Road where the Frisco had sat for
55 years was absolutely DESPERATE for yet another worthless-ass Walgreen’s.

Akin was the first restaurateur in Austin to integrate his restaurants, and his
management staff; minorities and women both held positions of power. He established
his own cattle ranch to supply his restaurants with beef, and started a very successful
frozen food line, selling his frozen Top Chop’t steaks at the supermarket. He
was one of the leaders of the Texas Restaurant Association and legislated for
benefits for the restaurant trade, including successfully lobbying for Texas to
get liquor-by-the-drink.

My connection with Nighthawk started as a child, around 1957. We would
occasionally dine there when there was something to celebrate. If we really had
a reason to splurge, we went to The Hitchin' Post, which is where Louis Shanks
Fine Furniture used to be on Lamar, just south of 12th street, on the east side
of the road in an elegant one story structure . It was upscale for Austin, and
we three sons would get read the riot act before going inside, threatening us
with whippings if we did our usual acting-out. My oldest brother Lynn was
notorious for pushing my buttons, and many's the night when we dined out that I
would end the dinner banned to the car in the parking lot while the rest of the
family finished eating inside. Lynn would pick at me or kick me under the
table, or give me the stink eye when no one was watching, until I exploded in
rage and got exiled to the backseat of the car in the parking lot. We were
obviously out of our element at the Hitchin' Post, mingling with the landed
gentry from Tarrytown and Pemberton Heights.

What I loved most about the Hitchin' Post was that at the end of the meal they
brought out a molded ice cream in the shape of a chess knight, a horse head,
which reminded me of the logo for Paladin, played by Richard Boone, the TV show
gunfighter famous for "Have Gun, Will Travel". They also had a
raging fire going in the fireplace during cold weather; that seemed exotic to
me. For "everyday" steaks (and “everyday” was still a rarity for us), we
went to Hill's, “Home of the Sizzler”, which was out on South Congress, and did
huge business. To a kid, the sizzling platters were a thing of fascination and
awe.

But we did visit the Nighthawk at Riverside and South Congress, and I loved the
clubby feel of it, and the waitresses were always real nice to us kids. My dad
had a penchant for the southern food joints on Burnet Road, Kirschner's being
one of his faves, but we would occasionally hit up The Frisco Shop, which was
also owned by Harry Akin of Nighthawk fame. I could sense the similarity to The
Nighthawk vibe, even as a kid, and grew to like the comfy vibe of the Frisco.

During college days at UT, our group (who all worked at the UT Coop bookstore),
would amble on down to the UT Nighthawk for lunch, or for a post partying
munchie fest late at night. C-Boy Parks was a fixture behind the grill and all
of the waitresses were regulars who could dish it out as good as they could
take it.

When I started working at the Pelican’s Wharf, down where King's Food Host used
to be, and where Hooters now sits, I quickly worked my way up through the
ranks, from temporary dishwasher, to dishwasher, to prep cook, to bus boy,
waiter, and finally line cook. My mentor on the line was Curtis
"T-Bone" Walker, the coolest Black chef that ever walked the tiles of
an Austin kitchen. Like Hoover Alexander, Vernon O’Rourke, and Gordon Fowler,
he came up through the ranks at the Harry Akin school of Nighthawk steak cooks
and was an absolute genius at it. Watching Curtis work an overflowing grill was
a thing of beauty. At the Wharf we had three chargrills in parallel, 12 (or was
it 15?) linear feet long by 3 feet wide, and we were doing monster business
back then, the most popular dinner spot in town: 400 to 600 dinners a week day
night wasn't unheard of and we could breach 1,000 on a UT football weekend. That is a mess of steaks, k-bobs, prime rib, king crab, lobster tails, scallops, mahi, and shrimp. A pic of the Victoria Pelican's Wharf, which opened in 1976...found this pic on Google Images. All of the locations looked similar.There were two cooks working the line, and Curtis's training method was trial-by-fire.
He wanted to train you as rapidly as possible, so that he could leave you to
run the line solo, while he sat in the back flirting with the cocktail
waitresses and hostesses with a Scotch or beer in-hand. The only time he came onto
the line to bail you out was when it was balls-to-the-wall busy, or when you
would get into the weeds (imagine a grill that size completely covered with ribeyes
and k-bobs). Get trained by Curtis to cook at the Austin Wharf, and there were
precious few that got the privilege, and you were among a very elite class of
steak chefs. There was one other situation that would bring Curtis rushing out
to the line: when one of the waiters told him that there was an “international”
just seated at a certain table. “International at 3-4” meant a special guest
was just seated at section three, table 4. That meant that shortly after, she
would be coming through the salad bar.
The salad bar ran right down the front of the cooking line, so the cook saw
everyone that came through the restaurant, face-to-face. It was well-lighted,
and on prominent display. An “International” was a beauty of such scope that
she could easily be a model in Europe, and back in those days, “internationals”
were frequents guests of the restaurant. The problem for a Wharf cook on the
line was watching the board full of tickets (and it was always full), and
keeping track of all of the food cooking, while simultaneously ogling the eye
candy sliding their cold platters down the salad bar, as they bent forward to
get ingredients out of the crocks on the back row. Life was good.

But I digress. On this particular afternoon R and I ambled into the “new”
Frisco as we call it, to find the same regulars working there, cooking and waiting
tables, and a crowd that looked like they never left the joint.The Frisco interior.....

I had a hankering for the Tex-Mex enchiladas, which is what I used to order
down at Nighthawk 2 on the Drag, and R ordered the Frisco burger and a side of
their onion rings with little hesitation. Girl knew what she wanted. The onion
rings are exceptional: handmade, with a cornmeal and flour crust and a doctored-up jalapeño
ketchup with a little heat added. We scarfed them down as an appetizer.

The enchiladas are of the comforting type, heavy with Colby cheese and
comino-laced chile meat sauce, stuffed with good quality picadillo ground beef.
The beans are rich and meltingly tender, and the Mexican rice has just the
right amount of tomato and garlic. This is a high quality platter of TexMex
enchiladas. The Frisco burger is what the Frisco’s business was built on. A great burger patty and cheddar cheese with
special relish and secret sauce, shredded lettuce and tomato, and instead of
fries, R requested a monkey dish of their slaw, which she is big fan of. It is
a typical sweet and sour style, but a little more tart than most, which I like.

For dessert we went for pie, R getting the icebox coconut cream and I got the
chess, or buttermilk. The coconut could have been a little sweeter and richer,
and the topping was whipped cream and not meringue. Not a big fan, but the
crust was nice and flaky. I am typically gonzo for a buttermilk pie, but this
one missed the mark; the crust was leaden and soggy, and the filling one
dimensional. It was tired, and definitely not excited about me eating it. The
feeling was mutual. All in all, mediocre pie aside, I love me some Frisco Shop.
I can go there and disappear into a world 40 or 50 years back without a whole
lot of effort.

Friday, May 17, 2013

A couple of weeks ago I sent an email to Grover Swift, the owner of Johnny G’s Butcher
Block in Manchaca, a favorite of carnivores down south. I suggested that he do
a special grind of burger mix with brisket, short rib, and bacon; a “squealer”
patty, but made with better cuts than just a standard chuck. I was over at
Rancho Winslow a couple of weekends ago, and we saw Grover out “walking” his
dogs in the back forty. Grover and Jill just moved in immediately behind Rancho
Winslow, so CBoy went out and put a nice gate in their adjoining fenceline.
Grover’s idea of “walking” his dogs was for him to sit in his truck, beer in
hand, air conditioner on, and window rolled down, while he drove slowly around
the pasture in big arcing circles, while the dogs trotted and panted alongside.
“Beats the shit outta me actually walking them,” he said. “That would involve
walking.” The man did have a point.

So we decided to amble on over and say hey, and once inside his new house we
started talking ground meat. You probably don’t know this, but Johnny G’s
grinds the meat for many of your favorite burger joints in town, and the dude
certainly knows his burger meat. As the negotiations commenced, I told him that
I wanted an equal blend of short rib, chuck flap, and brisket, with a little
bacon thrown in for fat; something around 75-25 on the lean-o-meter, and not
too finely ground; fat equals flavor, and it should have some coarseness to it.
Short rib, we all understood, but chuck flap threw the group into a loop.

Grover does flap meat for kebabs, just like we used to do at the Wharf back in
the day, after tri-tip got discovered and became too expensive for the
corporate profit margin. Marinate and grill some flap meat and you have a
fantastic kebab that melts in your mouth. But ask anyone where flap comes from
and arguments ensue. Chuck flap is also known as “chuck edge”, or “chuck
under-blade”, a cut from the serratus
ventralis which is a very highly marbled muscle. In your NAMP Meat Buyer’s
Guide it is number NAMP 116G. In California (and France) they call the other
cut flap, or bavette d'aloyau, a
fan-shaped cut that’s an extension of the T-bone and Porterhouse on the
short loin. The NAMP Buyer’s Guide says it’s the NAMP 185A, or the obliquus internus abdominis muscle from
the bottom sirloin butt. Same word, but two different cuts of meat from
opposite ends of the cow. So what we finally agreed upon to sample was a 70-30
blend, coarse ground, of 10% short rib, 60% brisket, and 30% smoked bacon; a
“squealer” by definition (a burger patty containing ground bacon), but a very
tasty, very beefy squealer.

Art and I had a restaurant consulting meeting and chatted about marketing of
the new book we have coming out on how to open and operate a restaurant (see
link below), and cooked up a couple of behemoth burgers to try out the blend. I
molded a couple of 9-ounce patties and fired up a skillet, while Art had cut
and pre-soaked some spuds for pomme frites. The burger patties cooked up nice
and juicy and tasted fantastic: a nice, rich beefy flavor with smoky undertones
of porky bacon. We ate them on some Pepperidge Farms Italian White bread with
some mayo and mustard (he had ketchup instead of mustard), chopped sweet onion,
and ripe tomato slices. The spuds were blanched halfway at 330°F, and then
finished at 365°F , so they puffed up and got golden crispy on the outside.
That is what ketchup was meant for, a proper fried potato. We scarffed it all
down, grunting with glee as we went. The leftover meat we shaped into a big
meatloaf and cooked it off, not for meatloaf, but for meatloaf sandwiches: the
king of cold meat sandwiches.

Top view

I love the juiciness of a 70-30 blend. The next batch I might cut back on the
bacon to 20%, with 35% brisket, 35% chuck flap, and 10% short rib; the chuck
and brisket should have enough fat to keep the whole mix at 70-30, even with
the bacon reduced a smidge. I’d love to have more short rib in there, but it’s
gotten so damn expensive since the wonderkid chefs discovered what the old soulfood
cooks knew all along: slowly braise a short rib and it’ll melt in your mouth.
Maybe I should try grinding some oxtail before the bistro babies discover them
too.